Well, I’ve been in Honduras a few days now. So far, everything is going well. This is going to be very long, so just read what you want. We arrived Wed the 11^th in Tegucigalpa. It was so exciting getting off the plane. We walked down the steps onto the runway into the beautiful day and I looked around at all the mountains and clouds and I was so happy and excited to finally be in this new country which would be my home for the next 2 plus years. We were met by Peace Corps staff and we all got on a bus to the training center in Santa Lucia. It’s a mountain town, very pretty and hilly, and about 30 minutes from Tegucigalpa.

When we got here, we had a very brief orientation before our host families came to pick us up. My host family is nice. In the house, there is a mother, father, two sons, ages 20 and 17, and a daughter who is 26 and has a 4 year old daughter. The little girl is really cute, and I pretty much hang out with her the most. I haven’t talked too much with the family yet, mainly because I have a hard time thinking of things to talk about and because I’m just so tired by the time I get home.

We have training starting at 7:30 each morning and we go until 4:30. Friday we had Spanish classes, vaccinations, received information about our bank accounts, had placement interviews for the level of Spanish class, a session about safety and security, and a session on culture. Also the country director came to talk to us. So it was a pretty full day. We will find out Monday or Tuesday where we placed for Spanish classes. The classes will be about 4 hours a day I think, and there will only be about 3 people per class.

The other trainees are all levels of Spanish. There are a couple people who don’t really know any and a few who are fluent. The rest are somewhere in between. This morning we had team-building activities, which was really fun, then a whole lot of us went out to lunch, so I´m getting to know people better. There are 48 people in my training class. It’s a good mix of people and although I’m still getting to know them, I’m getting along well with everyone. There are 4 or 5 people from Illinois, a few people from the DC area, and one girl who graduated from AU in 2004. Some of the volunteers just graduated, some graduated a few years ago, and some are a little older, but I think everyone is in their 20s except for a couple people.

The training is really good. All of the directors and teachers are really excited about their jobs and make the training less tedious than it could be. They are sincerely happy we’re here and are doing everything they can to prepare us for service. There aren’t many jobs or organizations that will give you 11 weeks of intense training. They assure us that everyone’s Spanish will substantially improve by the end of training.

I am in the municipal development program with about 16 others. The other programs in our group are youth development and protected areas management. Most people are in youth development. In mid-August we split up by program and go to field-based training. I’m pretty excited about that. My program, Muni Dev, is going to a community south of here. We will be with a host family there and will stay for 5 weeks. Language classes will continue and training will be more hands on.

I like that they integrate all the things we have to learn. During all of training we have classes on safety and security, culture, language, approaches to development, and our specific programs, among other things. These things are taught together, for example we will do skits on safety in Spanish. When we return from field-based training, we will find out our site assignments and then we swear in as volunteers September 27 and leave for our sites the next day.

In training, we also talk a lot about Peace Corps policies. As trainees, and once we become volunteers at the end of training, we represent not only ourselves, but also Peace Corps and the US. Many of the people we will meet will not know anything of the US and its people beside what they may see on TV, so the image we portray is really important. We must dress professionally at all times, unless we’re just sitting in our homes. We must respect the culture and be very careful not to offend anyone or to have anything less than a good reputation. We are professional development workers and we have to portray that.

The approach to development is also very important. Whatever initiatives or programs we begin or work on must be sustainable- they must be able to continue once we are gone. Our goal is to improve human capacities. Some of the effects of our work might not be seen until after we leave, but if we do our work correctly, there will be notable effects. The goals of the Muni Dev Program are to help citizens increase knowledge of and participation in local gov and civil society and to help municipal governments improve capacity to deliver public services in a transparent manner.

That’s all for now. I’m in good spirits and am very excited about everything. There are moments when I stop and think, “am I really doing this,?” or I get sad about everyone I left. But these moments pass very quickly. This will be a challenge, there’s no doubt, but I like challenges and I want to extend myself and grow. I have no doubt that the rewards of my work, my experiences, and my relationships will outweigh the hard times.